January 31, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – The controversy surrounding Pope Francis’ teaching on marriage and family as found in his exhortation Amoris Laetitia can be reduced to allowing Catholics “to sin,” said Bishop Athanasius Schneider in an exclusive interview with LifeSiteNews.

The auxiliary bishop of Astana Kazakhstan said that phrases such as “discernment,” “pastoral accompaniment,” and “change of paradigm,” while sounding “beautiful” amount to a concession to sin. He said it was similar to how Moses allowed the Israelites to sin by allowing divorce because of their “hardness of heart.”

“The suggestion is that now, after 2000 years, the Church has discovered the subjective aspect of the truth — that until now the Church has only been presenting the objective part of the truth, and now [is presenting] the subjective [part of the truth],” he said.

“But this language, the so-called ‘discovery of the subjective part of the truth’ is none other, when you translate this into common sense language — for every man who still has common sense — it ultimately means ‘to allow to sin’ – to give permission to sin, as Moses gave because of the hard-heartedness of the people,” he continued.

This language...ultimately means ‘to allow to sin.’

“And Jesus Christ condemned this. How can the Apostles and the Successors of the Apostles today introduce a pastoral norm which is in substance what Moses did?” he added.

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Amoris Laetitia unleashed moral mayhem into the Church upon it’s publication in the spring of 2016. Leading Church prelates and various bishops interpreted the teaching as allowing Holy Communion to be given to “remarried” Catholics engaging in sexual relations with one another. The teaching has also been used to push homosexuality (here and here)within the Catholic Church. It has also been used to suggest that the Church’s teaching against contraception as set forth in Humanae Vitae needs to be overturned.

Amoris Laetitia’s moral core has been called a “theological atomic bomb” that has the capacity to destroy all Catholic moral teaching.

Schneider said in his interview with LifeSiteNews that behind the push to allow adulterers to receive Holy Communion is really a hidden agenda to introduce divorce into the Catholic Church.

Advocates for Communion for the “remarried,” he said, are “using this as an implicit tool to introduce divorce into the Church, and to introduce...permission to have sexual activity outside of a valid marriage.”

This is to “introduce the spirit of the world today” into the Church, he added.

Following the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church has always taught that the marriage bond validly contracted between a husband and wife cannot be broken “till death do us part.” This teaching is largely based on the words of Jesus, who taught that “what God has joined together, let no one separate" (Mark 10:9).

The Church teaches that those who engage in sexual relations outside of a valid marriage commit adultery, which is prohibited by the Six Commandment. The Church furthermore teaches, following St. Paul, that the one who receives Communion with grave sin on his soul commits sacrilege and brings “judgment upon himself.”

Schneider said that giving Holy Communion to those who intentionally perform sexual activity outside a valid marriage “is a cruel medicine...a false medicine.”

“This is confirming them in their disease to continue to live against the will of God, against Revelation. And this will never bring the subjective part of the truth to them. This is distorting the truth. This is not pastoral love,” he said.